


Foundations

by WalkingInland



Category: Outlander & Related Fandoms, Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: 2x07, Angst, Book 2: Dragonfly in Amber, F/M, Miscarriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-21
Updated: 2019-06-21
Packaged: 2020-05-16 04:36:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19310752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WalkingInland/pseuds/WalkingInland
Summary: Instead of being taken to the Bastille after his duel with Randall, Jamie comes to his wife's bedside in the L'Hôpital des Anges.





	Foundations

**Author's Note:**

> This one-shot is a bit of a canon divergence, and deals with events surrounding episode 2x07, Faith. If that topic is one that is difficult for you, I would suggest skipping this one. Mind the tags. Much love, my dears.

_Claire! CLAIRE! No, I need to know how she fares… Please, she’s my wife, I have to see her! No, no ye don’t understand… No I will NOT wait here! God, please, just let me be with her. I promised her I wouldna leave her side, please._

There was shouting. Shouting and screaming and begging and a pain that felt so distant and yet was somehow family to the pain she held in her arms and in her chest. Was she the one screaming? Was that the reason her throat and body ached so? She didn’t think so, but here in this neverending place of silence it was hard to tell what belonged to her anymore. She didn’t understand how she could hurt so badly and yet be so numb. Her world had been shrinking ever since that piece of white had caught her eye. How long ago had that been? Minutes, hours, years? How long since her foundations were gone and everything changed?

He had promised. He had promised that his family was everything. He had promised that the baby would be a new beginning.

Jamie wasn’t normally one to break a promise.

But here she was, without him, holding their broken promise in her arms.

Her heart felt so cold and yet she didn’t think her body could get any warmer. That felt wrong somehow. Perhaps it was why she was holding on so tightly. As if by clinging a little closer she could push her warmth and her breath and her life into this little life that had not had a chance.

She didn’t feel anything. Or perhaps she felt everything, all at once. She couldn’t tell the difference anymore, and she wasn’t at all sure she cared about feelings in this moment.

There were more important things to tend to.

The shouting seemed to have changed now. It was coming closer, growing quieter, building speed and then screaming to a halt, coming closer to rejoining its family.

It was quiet again around her and in her mind when she felt a hand on her shoulder.

She knew that hand. She knew it intricately. She knew its scars, its bones, it twisted flesh made whole by her care. When that hand would rest on her shoulder in comfort and love, and she reached up with her own and held on tight, she would always know that things would be better.

Her hands were too full now to be bothered with comfort.

_Claire?_

That foundation had been gone. He had taken it away. But he was here now, trying to shore up what was gone.

_Lass?_

She didn’t want to rebuild. She wanted to lie here with her daughter in the dark and wait for moss to grow over their bones until all that was left was a beautiful ruin.

 _Love, please_.

But he wouldn’t let her. She knew him too well.

_Please, Claire. Look at me, love._

She dared not. She knew that the tears in her eyes flowed down his cheeks, and that if she saw his beautiful broken face open to take her pain and give her his in return, she would never feel numb again. She wasn’t sure she could survive that.

A weight shifted the bed behind her as the hand on her shoulder turned into an arm wrapped around her.

_Jesus, Claire. She’s beautiful._

Finally, slowly, she turned her head and looked in his eyes, his daughter’s inheritance. She saw her own pain reflected there; the pain of broken promises, of shattered dreams, of a family that was not what it should be.

She finally finds a voice where she thought she had none. It’s not much of a voice; not strong, clear, or decisive like it had been for so much of her life. It is the voice of an orphan without a child.

It is with this voice that she somehow manages to tell her husband their child’s name. That name that carries more meaning than any they could have come up with on their own.

She is their Faith. Their assurance of things hoped for. Their evidence of love unseen.

She isn’t numb anymore. She can feel her daughter in her arms, her husband wrapped around her, her body wracked with pain, and her heart breaking.

She hadn’t thought she was strong enough to withstand such feeling. Now she knows she isn’t.

But _they_ are.

She feels her husband’s trembling lips brush against her temple as he brushes her hair back with one hand while cupping their baby’s tiny head with the other.

_Oh, Claire. Thank ye for our lass. Our wee Faith._

He had told her once that she helped him to build a roof over his soul. To keep out the rain, he said. Well here he was, with his stubbornness, with his tenacity, with his heartbroken love, coming alongside her.

And he was going to build them a foundation to grow their lives upon.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I am just a tiny baby writer, so any feedback is more than appreciated! ❤❤❤


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